


No More To Wake

by nyxviola



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Character Death, Depression, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Slash, Suicide, Triggers, double suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:53:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyxviola/pseuds/nyxviola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with faking your own death is that someone who loved you might want to join you; Sherlock comes back too late. (Fic inspired by a very beautiful fanart by Superfizz: http://superfizz.deviantart.com/art/Post-Reichenbach-Too-Late-289552663)</p>
            </blockquote>





	No More To Wake

**Author's Note:**

> Sherlock Holmes belongs to ACD, and in this version to BBC, Moffat & Gatiss. I own nothing. I'm not making a profit out of this. Beta by the brilliant swissmarg on LJ.  
> Originally posted on my LJ.  
> The title comes from a line of 'In Memoriam' by Lord Tennyson; this fic was inspired by a very beautiful, poignant and sad fanart by Superfizz: http://superfizz.deviantart.com/art/Post-Reichenbach-Too-Late-289552663

John H. Watson, as a doctor, knew that the way he had reacted to his friend Sherlock’s suicide was entirely unhealthy and worrying. A year and a half had passed since that day but he still had not overcome his grief. He went out as little as possible, he didn’t wish to see other people, he slept poorly (when he managed to actually fall asleep) and his drinking habits had started to be unmistakably similar to his sister’s.

With every passing day the list of things that hurt him because they reminded him of Sherlock and his death got longer. He avoided cabs because they reminded him of his adventures by Sherlock’s side; he couldn’t even look at the sign for the Baker Street tube station without feeling a stab in his heart. The sight of Italian restaurants (their first “dinner” together, their first adventure, a date even, according to Angelo) sickened him; long, dark coats had the same effect. The idea of blogging made him feel an unstoppable desire to smash his laptop. He couldn’t stand mobile phone texts, Sherlock’s favourite means of communication, so he kept his mobile phone turned off – he had no one he wanted to communicate with anyway. Violin music gave him palpitations. And the sight of tabloids – they were nearly as culpable as Moriarty – made him want to physically hurt someone.

It had been too much. John was strong, brave, a soldier, but he had reached his limit. Watching Sherlock fall had been too much. The pain of losing the most important person in his life had been too much for him to take.

He had gone back to Baker Street one last time, had sat on that armchair, but Sherlock wasn’t there and he was not going to come back. Refraining from smashing the whole place to pieces had been hard. Thus he had ended up in a Spartan bedsit with bare walls (like an asylum cell), shabby, impersonal furniture and far too much alcohol for only one person.

He drank to stop thinking, to forget him, to drown his sorrows. But even the bottle had declared war on John Watson. He drank and drank but the memories didn’t fade at all. In fact they became even more vivid and then they turned into weird daydreams in which Sherlock was very much alive, uncharacteristically warm, forward, sensual. The Sherlock of John’s drunken fantasy would lounge around only his blue dressing-gown (such an enticing contrast with his pale skin), thin pyjama bottoms and a mischievous glint in his eyes. That Sherlock was a blessing and a curse, because it was all he had left and yet he tormented John with the memory of what could have been and chances lost forever. He didn’t really know what those fantasies meant. He just knew they hurt. And he knew the pain was not going to pass with time.

He had come back broken from the war, and somehow Sherlock had put him back together again. Sherlock had taught him how to live and – paradoxically – how to feel again. Sherlock's death had broken him again, and he knew there was no going back. Why bother?

He didn’t feel weak, though. He knew it wasn’t an excess of drama and self-pity. He just had nothing to go on for anymore. And he wanted to stop things before he became one of those bleary-eyed drunkards who bore people in pubs with the sad story of their failures and ill-fated loves. John knew, he had seen Harry like that often enough. Clearly, it was something that ran in the family, the failures, ill-fated loves and alcoholism. He did not want to go on slowly poisoning himself with alcohol, then pass out and die choking on his own vomit. He had been a soldier, and he wanted to leave with at least a bit of his dignity still intact. And deep down, he didn’t want to drink himself completely stupid and forget all about Sherlock and what they had done together, what they had been together.

John had asked for a miracle, but the miracle had not come. He had waited. For something, anything, but every day he was faced by the harsh truth: Sherlock was dead. He had been clever but even he couldn’t come back from the dead. John had failed as a doctor, as a soldier, as a friend, letting Sherlock jump in front of his eyes without being able to stop him. And John knew what he had to do. He knew how to make a clean and efficient job of it. Being a doctor was going to prove useful for a change; he had exactly the right kind of pills.

His eyes were still wet. No reason to hide his tears now. It was going to be over soon…

\-----

Sherlock had tried getting in touch with John for two weeks straight. It was risky, dreadfully risky and even stupid, but he just had to try. It was as if John had disappeared. Molly knew nothing at all; she hadn’t seen him for nearly a year and even with Mycroft’s help, finding John had been a lot trickier than expected. And Sherlock couldn’t stop feeling that things had gone wrong.

The door of the flat – shabby place, shabby neighbourhood, not an area John would pick if he’d still been working, if he’d still been all right, or if he he’d still been trying to look all right – was closed. He knocked gently but no one answered. But he knew John had to be there. And that flimsy, locked door was not going to stop him, not after all he had done – tracking down Moriarty’s men to the last one, Sebastian Moran, and certainly not to hand them over to the cops; Sherlock knew how to be literally judge, jury and executioner.

The flat was so small he saw him at once, lying on the narrow, unmade bed. Sherlock felt like he was choking. John’s eyes were closed, his cheeks still lightly wet. And he was already getting cold.

Too late. He had come too late. He had failed John. He had done all that to protect John, to keep him safe, knowing he was eventually going to come back to him. And yet everything had gone wrong, as wrong as it could go. He had underestimated John’s pain. He had failed John when he needed him most. He knew he had been blinded by his own cleverness, by his desire to come back only when all of Moriarty’s men had been annihilated. He had wanted to show John once again how clever he could be, and in doing so he had let Moriarty win in the end.

Tears filled his eyes again, like that time on the roof of Bart's, and his own gun, in the pocket of his coat, was like an invitation Sherlock couldn’t refuse.

The barrel was cold against his temple. But it belonged there now. And pulling the trigger felt like finally going home.

\----

The shot resounded loud and clear in the silence of the sleeping suburb. Someone in the neighbouring flats called the police. Even after three years, few had forgotten Sherlock Holmes, his sudden fame and his even more sudden downfall. He had been all over the press for the weird Moriarty trial, and then when he killed himself after having been exposed as nothing else but a fraud. Some even remembered that he had a friend, an ordinary doctor who had lived with him and helped him with his “cases”. And so the news spread fast, along with many muttered 'hows' and 'whys'.

As soon as he heard of it, Lestrade left New Scotland Yard in a rush. He didn’t pause to ask himself how and why; he knew he had to go there, to see, to understand. He knew things would be bad, but he wasn’t ready for what he saw. Years and years at Scotland Yard had not prepared him for that, and for the knowledge that he, too, was guilty.

John Watson was lying on the bed, dead, no signs of violence on his body; Sherlock Holmes was slumped on the same bed, over John, his pale eyes still open, blood turned to black around his head, the gun still in his hand.


End file.
